


sitting beside you, a thousand miles away

by caydiink (gayleb)



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Clay | Dream-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Conversations, Guilt, Insanity, Not Beta Read, One Shot, Pre-Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Villain Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Villain Wilbur Soot, Villains, Wilbur Soot-centric, but like sadly, i really dont know how to tag this one lads, just guys being dudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:41:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29157555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayleb/pseuds/caydiink
Summary: “I think I understand.”Dream stood behind Wilbur, the British man’s legs dangling off the edge of the cliff, overlooking the nation he had worked so hard to build.“Understand what?” Dream asked, hands shoved into his pockets, shoulders tense, mask covering every inch of his face.Wilbur just laughed.AKA Dream and Wilbur talk about everything before the second war, and I just really like the parallels between their characters
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Wilbur Soot
Comments: 10
Kudos: 185





	sitting beside you, a thousand miles away

**Author's Note:**

> hhhgnghfbfhg this has absolutely no plot and is very short, but i wanted 2 post something so here u go aha

“I think I understand.”

Dream stood behind Wilbur, the British man’s legs dangling off the edge of the cliff, overlooking the nation he had worked so hard to build.

“Understand what?” Dream asked, hands shoved into his pockets, shoulders tense, mask covering every inch of his face.

Wilbur just laughed.

He swept his hand out, motioning to the city before them, his smile too wide to be comfortable, eyes manic, filled with passion and longing and just a hint of insanity, hidden beneath his endless faces.

Dream understood the need to wear a mask. He knew what it felt like, to feel as if you had to hide your face, your flaws, your weaknesses away from the world, simply so it could never be used against you.

He understood the fear of having everything you are turned into everything you never will be, your own face weaponized against yourself as you can only stand there and take it.

Dream felt that, he really did.

But he had never seen someone craft a mask like Wilbur. His silver tongue and fancy words hiding any flaws from sight, soothing over old aches and new wounds with nothing but a smile and a laugh and a promise that everyone knew would never be kept, but no one questioned.

Wilbur had learned to turn his words into weapons, speaking whatever he may need into existence with a few sentences, his voice smooth and his eyes clear, and if Dream didn’t know what to look for, if he hadn’t seen it in the mirror every goddamn day, it would have fooled him too.

Dream could see the pain hidden beneath. He could see the fear and uncertainty screaming beneath Wilbur’s skin, itching to get out, to take and take until he finally felt whole.

He could see it festering, building up with no way out but through, and Dream dreaded the day it finally escaped.

“I finally get you,” Wilbur said, back turned to him and legs swinging beneath him, coat splayed out behind him like a robe, dirt and blood mixing into the fabric, a memory of everything it had been through.

Of everything that Wilbur had been through.

Dream watched Wilbur. He watched the way his shoulders slumped and his body hunched forward, head still raised in pride even as his body decayed beneath him, spiralling further and further, piece by piece, as insanity sunk its teeth into the once proud man.

It would be so easy to push him over the edge.

Dream would only have to take two steps, maybe three.

He could almost feel the fabric beneath his fingers, the rough texture of Wilbur’s coat as he grabbed it in steady hands, taking one final breath, giving the man one final moment of acceptance, before pushing forwards, sending the man to his final death.

It would be so fucking easy.

And maybe that’s what Wilbur wants. Beneath all the formality and the characters he puts on, beneath all the strength he shows despite how small he truly feels, maybe he wants it.

He wants someone to take that final push for him. He craves the release death brings him like an addict, longs for the rush of adrenaline before he finally hits the earth, the sense of finality, of control and peace it would finally bring him.

Maybe he thinks that the never ending silence of death would be better than the never ending noise of life.

Would it truly be so bad? Would it be so awful to wish for it? Too long for it as he had? As they both had at one point or another?

He already carried guilt upon his shoulders, what was one more sin to add to his ever growing list, weighing him down with each step he took.

Was he wrong to wish for something so horrible? Did it make him selfish? The need to be free from the mess his one dream had become, the corruption and lies and deceit that had overtaken the nation he fought so hard for?

Of course, Dream wasn’t Wilbur, and he could only guess what the man thought.

But, if Dream were him, he doesn’t know what he would’ve wished for.

He silently thanks whatever god is out there that, in that moment, he isn’t Wilbur, he is merely himself.

He mourns the man in front of him, a broken shell of everything he could have been, but he does not pity him.

There was no point in pitying a man who had condemned himself.

He had become his own downfall, and Dream waited for the day he finally hit the ground.

“You _get_ me?” Dream asked, crossing his arms, remaining behind Wilbur, watching the sun set behind Manberg, the day slowly fading.

Wilbur hummed, bobbing his head to a song only he could hear, humming a broken melody softly, notes falling from cracked and bitten lips, drifting away with the wind.

“I never thought I would,” Wilbur said, hands twisting in his lap, always moving every part of the man always in motion, “I thought to myself ‘huh, that Dream fellow is a mystery I will simply never solve,’ and I accepted that! I did!

“But now,” Wilbur said, hands falling still and head snapping forward, “now, Dream, I finally understand.”

Wilbur breathed in, the rest of his body frozen.

“I understand _everything._ ”

Dream swallowed thickly, his stomach churning, bile rising in his throat.

These weren’t the words he had heard so many times before. These weren’t the words of a man who got what he wanted, speaking smoothly and oh so sure of himself.

Dream could hear the threat in Wilbur’s voice. He could hear the certainty and the awe and the agony of a man trapped inside his own mind, longing to be set free once and for all in each word he spoke.

Wilbur’s words were no longer coated in formality, small lies and half truths weaved within each sentence, needing only one word for every five he meant, his smile knowing but oh so charming.

Wilbur only spoke the truth now, stripped of his title and his lies and his many, many masks.

That was what scared Dream the most.

It wasn’t the insanity that lurked beneath his eyes, growing more and more prominent every single day. It wasn’t the way his hands shook or his chest heaved or his voice wavered or his body trembled.

It was the certainty held within Wilbur’s voice that shook Dream to his core.

The unwavering knowledge that, no matter what Dream said or did, Wilbur _knew_ him. He knew what made him tick, why he did what he did, why he wore the mask and fought the wars and played the role of the villain he had been cast as.

Wilbur knew Dream.

And that prospect alone, the thought of being known, of his name and his face or his lack thereof holding any semblance of value in this world terrified him.

Dream didn’t want to be known as he is, he doesn’t want people to see him for who he is or who he was becoming.

He wanted to be known as the persona he played, the face he put forward when all eyes turned to him.

But Wilbur had seen past all of that, all of the lies and the deceptions, and he had _seen_ Dream.

How do you lie to a liar?

“Listen Wilbur,” Dream said, taking a step towards the man, a slight waver hidden beneath his voice as his hands shook and his shoulders ached, “I don’t know what you think you know, but this is a dangerous game you’re playing here. Quit, before you lose it all on a gamble.”

Wilbur just laughed, loud and unhinged, echoing around them as his shoulders shook and his hands gripped his stomach, as if he could hold himself together, stop himself from tearing apart at the seams.

“Oh Dream,” Wilbur said, voice light, almost a whisper, “I’ve already bet it all. I’ve nothing left to lose.”

Dream sat down on the cliff next to Wilbur, face set firmly forwards, watching the nation before them instead of the man who had raised it beside him.

“I know how you felt now,” Wilbur said, “during that first war. I didn’t get it at first. Why did you care so much about one stupid piece of land?”

Wilbur laughed, quiet and sharp, a pitying laugh.

“I thought you were an idiot to go to war for it. Openly called you one throughout the whole ordeal, not that it matters now,” Wilbur said, waving off Dream’s protest with his hand, continuing his rant as he watched the sun fade.

“But I get it. I get the pain, the injustice, the humiliation and the fear, and the need to do better. I now know how it feels to be kicked out of the land you worked so hard to build. Being forced out of your own home as if you never mattered, all of your hard work, the blood and sweat and tears you poured into it suddenly meaningless.

“The knowledge that, everything you suffered, the prices you paid and the foes you faced and the pain you bared and the lives you took, that none of it _fucking matters!_ ” Wilbur screamed, eyes wide and fists clenched at his side, chest heaving as he gasped for air.

“And it’s awful,” he said, eyes glazed over, his shoulder trembling with laughter or sobs Dream would never be sure of.

“It’s so fucking awful, watching everything you worked so hard to create being taken from you in one, pitiful moment. The rage I felt when Schlatt took the place that had truly belonged to me. The betrayal that festers within you, growing and taking and becoming something new entirely, forming the person you’ve become, twisting your every thought.”

Wilbur sighed, hands coming up to pull at his hair, nails digging into his scalp as his knuckles went white with the strength of his grip, his fingers tangled within the locks of his hair.

“It’s horrible, watching it all crumble before your eyes, knowing you are powerless to stop it,” Wilbur said quietly, gaze fixed on the horizon.

“But you would do anything, _anything,_ to get it back,” Dream finished, never once turning to look at the man beside him.

Wilbur grinned, the smile never quite reaching his eyes as he turned to look at Dream.

Dream turned to look at Wilbur, eyes meeting beneath the mask, nothing but the wind to fill the silence.

They simply watched each other, waiting to see what would happen next. Where they would go from here.

“I hated you, Dream,” Wilbur finally said, eyes never wavering, his voice dull as he spoke, “I hated you so much, and everything you stood for.”

“What changed?” Dream asked, squaring his shoulders as he looked up at the man before him.

“I started to pity you,” Wilbur said, grinning at how Dream flinched back.

“I pitied the man you had become, the man who had lost it all for a few chunks of land that would never matter in the grand scheme of things.”

Dream shut his eyes, praying that if he pretended hard enough, Wilbur might disappear, and he wouldn’t have to sit here and listen to the madman unravel him.

“I pitied what you had become, before becoming you myself,” Wilbur laughed, any hint of amusement now gone, his voice cold and disinterested.

“Madness plagues many men Dream,” Wilbur began, staring at the mask for a moment longer before turning his gaze back to Manberg, “but only gods can benefit from it.”

“We’re not gods, Dream,” Wilbur said, face settling into the mask of the man he had once been yet again, “at this point, we’re not even men.”

He stood then, brushing the dust from his pants and casting one final look out at the horizon as night began to fall, turning to look down at Dream, still stuck on the edge.

“This was a lovely conversation,” Wilbur said, an emotion Dream couldn’t quite place lurking beneath every word, “but I’m afraid I really must be going. Revolution to plan and all that good shit.”

Dream nodded silently, a cool, empty numbness beginning to seep into his bones, making its way through him as he sat there on the edge of the cliff, legs dangling beneath him.

Wilbur placed a hand on his shoulder, the gesture anything but comforting.

“If it makes you feel any better Dream,” Wilbur whispered, face next to Dream’s as he spoke into his ear, “I thought about pushing you as well.”

With that Wilbur turned and left, soft footsteps fading into the night as he made his way back to wherever he had come from.

Dream sat there on the edge, watching the earth beneath him shift as he swung his legs, back and forth and back and forth.

He wondered if Wilbur felt the same crushing loneliness that plagued him each day.

But what was loneliness, to monsters among men.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope u enjoyed my shitty 3 am brainrot, i just love their characters so much and think they're so interesting and just AFDFGHFGBHFGGHG Them
> 
> if u liked it pls consider droppin a comment/kudos and also hmu on insta @ caydiink aha ;))
> 
> thank u guys sm for reading this, sorry it's like worse than other stuff i post but i simply could not get them out of my mind !!!
> 
> <33


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